Maybe it wouldn't matter. There was a chance, a probable one, that they'd find her, save her, bring her back into this world. And then what? With each step Cullen found himself wondering what came next. Lana left the word when it was in shambles, both factions of her people scraping by. In the time of her loss, the wardens picked themselves back up in the south while the mages started their own college. Would either of those sound more enticing than the nothing Cullen had to offer? Or... Cullen turned around to stare at the king still trying to track the invisible stars in the daylight sky. Would she find a comfort in the old and familiar to try and overcome two years in the fade?
Sensing eyes upon him, Alistair broke away from his useless vigil and shrugged. "I feel like we should set up camp before all the creepy crawlies come after us."
"What do we have to face here?" Cullen asked, wishing he'd taken the time to study the area before setting out.
Of course, the king shrugged again. "Don't know, it's my first time."
"If I may ask, we are in the Anderfells. Why have you not solicited the grey wardens for assistance?"
Alistair rubbed his shoulder, realized it was covered in the shield, then switched to the other. "I don't know how helpful they'd be with this matter. Or any matter if the wild rumors I'm hearing are true. Regardless, Lanny's not someone they're a big fan of, for reasons that are complicated and super duper warden secrety."
That caused Cullen to pucker his lips together. She'd told him much, about the Calling, about what happened at the Vigil, but Lana never went into what drove a wedge between her and the wardens. He'd assumed it was Clarel's doing with her blood magic, but the way Alistair spoke it seemed deeper and more universal.
Watching the anger play across Cullen's face, Alistair spoke up, "It's one of those secrets that could hurt someone innocent, so Lanny keeps it because she doesn't think it's hers worth telling and I keep it because I'd rather forget it."
"Will it bring about the end of thedas?" Cullen asked meaning it as a joke.
But the king shuddered and he dug the heels of his hands into his eyes, "Maker's breath, I hope not. Anyway, camping. Campsites need fiery places which means wood. Mind if I borrow your dog? She's great at carrying sticks."
"She carries one and it's covered in slobber upon your return," Cullen began, but the man only shrugged. "Very well."
"Come on, pretty puppy," Alistair cooed to the dog and they set off together towards a stand of brittle trees leering across the chasm, their roots popping out of the rock like wooden worms. It seemed unlikely they'd find much of anything to get a proper fire going in this barren land. Aside from the grass, little stretched across the horizon -- only the rise and fall of the mountainous cliffs embraced them. To think, once long ago griffins flew in and out of the crevices cracked into the steppe sides with wardens flush upon their backs.
Lana would have...Lana could still love seeing it. She could dig into the old nests scattered around, see if there were any preserved griffin feathers forgotten inside the mountain's cavities. All children loved to hear the tales of the mighty grey wardens swooping through the sky and saving the world from blight while nestled in the feathers of their mounts. It seemed impossible to imagine such a thing ever existing, but in his life he'd watched a knight-commander turn into stone, one of the ancient tevinter magisters who walked in the black city open the fade, and... Cullen shook his head. The Inquisitor believed with a shocking fervor that Solas was this Fen'Harel, the elven god of tricks and mischief. Cullen didn't argue with the man, but he had his doubts. More than doubts -- to even conceive of the idea that Solas lived not just before the ancient Imperium but during the elven times of the world as well? There was something off about Solas -- anyone who talked to him for more than a moment knew that -- but a god, and yet not a god?
They spoke rarely, Solas inquiring on occasion about templars but always keeping civil in his perfunctory way. He seemed less curious about the answer and more wanting to shore up his already laid assumptions. Once, he stumbled across Cullen in prayer at the small chantry in the gardens. Cullen felt that shined bald head twisting in interest while watching him speak through the canticles, but Solas waited patiently until he finished and rose. He had no belief in faith, none in his own people's creators certainly, and scoffed at the idea of Andraste or the Maker existing - and yet...
It was the longest discussion Cullen had with him debating not the existence of faith, but the usefulness of it. Solas propped up his theory that belief or faith were intangible, their very existence relied upon a fervent hope - any concrete proof ran counter to their very existence. But so often simple hope wasn't enough. People felt inadequate when their belief in the unknowable wasn't strong enough, or wavered, and they struggled through the darkness not inside themselves but outside for definitive proof. That search in and of itself could cause damage inflicted by a person on themselves or those deemed unworthy, not to mention what the chantry does to those not fitting within its ideals. But strangest of all, it was Solas who arrived upon the idea that hope was necessary, and with it belief -- perhaps not in some distant gods, but an unknowable force all the same to strike back against the chaos. Whether it was in the form of a Maker, faith, spirits, or justice itself depended upon the mind.
Cullen's own faith waxed and waned. He thought he'd truly believed with all his heart when he was in the abbey, giving as much of himself as he could to the order. Believing he at thirteen had all the answers to the questions of life. After the blood mages in the tower, he found himself bereft, the oarless boat bobbing on a foggy sea. Sinful and far from the Maker for his thoughts of Lana - he felt he had no right to Andraste's forgiveness. He believed in Andraste and the Maker, but he didn't feel worth of them. It was years into Kirkwall, when he'd grown exhausted from the never ending trial of blood mages on one side and Meredith on the other that he found himself not in the smaller chantry in the Gallows but walking through the great one in Hightown.
No... He remembered now, it was after Lana left. Almost two weeks after. He'd tried to cleanse himself as best he could, wipe away the memories, the yearning in his blood for her, for a mage, but she kept rising back to him like a fever that wouldn't break. Trying to sneak in quietly only for a moment, he never meant to draw the Grand Cleric's attention. She smiled at the templar in her midst and slid into the back pew to sit beside him. People passed in and out of the chantry, mothers performed the rites at the altars, even the chanters themselves switched places. The entire time the Grand Cleric sat beside him, not saying a word, her paper thin hands clasped together. When he realized he was due for his duty, the Grand Cleric stood with him. Still, she didn't speak, her lips smiling. Cullen was about to leave when curiosity won over and he had to know why she spent the whole day sitting in the pew beside him when there were a hundred other things more pressing for her attention. Smiling beatifically, the Grand Cleric said the words he'd always remember, "No one deserves to be alone."
A wad of twigs dropped in the middle of the grass, shocking Cullen out of his memory. Alistair danced back and forth on his feet, and apologized, "This was the best I could find."
"Looks as if we're going to be eating a cold dinner tonight," Cullen sighed. Short of a miracle, there was no way to get a fire off the still green brambles the king stripped from the trees. Beside him, Honor gnawed upon her own find, the shards of wood slobbering down her chin.
"Is all of the damn Anderfells like this?" Alistair jerked his head around as if noticing their surroundings for the first time. "Why does anyone live here? I bet it's got something to do with the pie. People always go on about the pie from the west."
Knocking the twigs apart with his foot to see if anything was workable, Cullen sighed, "I hope resupplying in towns was involved in the itinerary, or it will be a lot of undercooked food here on out."
Alistair nodded his head, then shrugged, "Probably, wherever they are. Countries got to have towns otherwise it's not really a country, more like a wild grass plain co
vered in animals and people who never got around to building cities. More like farm central -- oh I wonder if they have a pig for a mayor in one of 'em? There's a town in Ferelden that elected a donkey after, it's not important. Here, let me check the map."
Yanking his satchel forward, the king dug through a pair of socks, another pair of socks with his name stitched along them. "Damn, I swear it's in here." The socks scattered onto the twig pile, as did a tunic. When he yanked out a pair of smallclothes, a dark rage kicked into Cullen's gut. He whipped his head back and forth. No, it was his imagination. It couldn't be right.
"Hold a moment," Cullen commanded. The king froze, his underwear wadded up in his hand, but that wasn't what Cullen cared about.
"What am I holding for?" Alistair asked when Cullen yanked on the edge of his satchel and peered inside. His heart sank into his knees as Lana's phylactery rolled into sight - the pulsing red replaced with a black as dark as death. No! No, it wasn't possible! Not again! With a faster grasp than he thought possible, Cullen snatched up the dead phylactery and waved it in Alistair's face.
"What is the meaning of this?!" he shouted because he couldn't hear anything over the blood rushing through his ears, the anger drumming tighter in his chest. His lungs inflated against the vice constricting around his heart, pulverizing the useless organ to dust.
The king's guilty eyes danced from the black phylactery back to him, "I-I can explain."
"Explain what?! That she's dead? She's been dead this whole time and you-you, what? Why would you do this? You kept on dragging me across thedas for your own power play?" Cullen's throat tightened, red spots bursting on the sides of his vision. He feared he'd either slip into a fugue state in the burning rage or fully pass out.
"It's not like that, not always black. Look..." Alistair swung the satchel back and reached for the phylactery, but Cullen held it away from him.
"How did you accomplish this? For the Maker's sake, why would you do it?!" No, not after all this, it couldn't be true. But he felt it. There was life in a phylactery, each one hummed in a shared heartbeat with the owner. Holding a dead one was like carrying a corpse, soulless and cold. Cullen blinked furiously, burying his tears of both rage and grief in equal measure.
"It switches sometimes!" Alistair panicked, his eyes darting from his hand to the phylactery, "I don't know why. For hours it'll be her, okay, alive, pulsing. And then, bam, it fades away and goes black..." the king's voice dropped down, grief climbing up his cheeks.
Lies. In all his time as a templar, Cullen never heard of any phylactery doing that. It was that bastard's doing, his demented need to...to fix what he destroyed. Of course, he blamed himself for Lana's death, for pushing her into the Calling, into the fade. The truth crushed Cullen more than any giant rock ever could. His hand fell and the king quickly snatched her dead phylactery away, but it didn't matter. None of it did because she was dead, gone, had been for years.
Andraste's sake... Cullen rubbed his hand vigorously against his eyes, the finality silencing what he had left in his heart. Lana was dead. Damn it! Damn the king of Ferelden for this charade! Damn the fade for taking her! Cullen turned away from the king staring limply at the dead phylactery in his hands. He reached down to gather up his own meager satchel and took a step back towards the bridge. Damn himself for ever believing in this. People don't come back from the dead.
"What are you doing?" the king shouted as if he had any standing left.
Cullen limply patted his leg to call Honor to his side and walked towards Tevinter, "Leaving. There is nothing for me here."
"That's it?! You'd give up now? You're giving up on her?" the king shouted.
It was fruitless. Cullen began with so little hope this would succeed even with a working phylactery... With the tiny spark snuffed, berating him now would do nothing. He let the man's bitter words wash across his back as he shuffled slowly towards the bridge. A deadly exhaustion climbed up his legs at the despair nesting in his heart, but he knew he couldn't stop - he had to get away before he did something foolhardy or crumbled into misery.
"I thought she meant something to you, the way you'd carry on at any mention of her name, but I see I was mistaken. She gave her everything for your damned Inquisition, turned her back on the people who cared about her, and for what?!" Alistair shook his head like a mad bull, the man pacing back in forth. "You let her die!"
Cullen paused, his back tightening.
"Ten years Lanny was safe in Ferelden, safe where I could protect her, but she spends one month in your watch...and she's gone. Do you even care what you took from her? Did you care then?! And you talk as if you loved her. I doubt you're even capable."
His fist smashed against Alistair's jaw, Cullen's knuckles knocking one by one up the bone, the force enough to split open his dry skin from the brash and poorly planned punch. Reeling back by instinct, Alistair threw an arm across his face shielding it from another blow. But none was coming as Cullen's knees locked, haggard breath snorting from his nose, his shoulders rising and falling with each one. His fist remained hanging where it struck while his brain shut down. Maker, he punched a king. He punched the king of Ferelden. The king tenderly grazed the back of his hand across the rising bruise, his eyes flaring as he stared over at the man who hit him. With careful movements, he placed the phylactery into his satchel and pulled the bag off his shoulder, dropping both to the ground.
Cullen steadied himself knowing what was coming and preferring it to a beheading or banishment, but this king punched with the force of a battering ram. Light burst in the back of Cullen's brain as his head snapped back, sound draining from the world while pain bloomed across his cheek as the king yanked back his own bleeding knuckles. At least he didn't break his nose.
They could leave it at that, Cullen returning back to Skyhold empty handed and empty hearted, the king more than likely drafting some declaration of war against the Inquisition if they didn't hand over their commander. A punch for a punch. Cullen's fist knotted up, the fingernails digging deep into the calluses along his palm. "You don't know what I feel," he growled. Leaping forward, Cullen drove one first for Alistair's head, but the man raised his own arm up blocking it. Too bad Cullen expected that, his left fist smashing into the man's exposed stomach. Maker, it was like punching a wall.
Cullen danced away as the king gasped, almost dropping to a knee as he struggled to catch back the air knocked from him. "I..." Alistair choked again, then rolled his tongue around before spitting blood into the dirt, "I know exactly how you feel." He came after Cullen, fists pounding rapidly one after the other, the distance short but the rising multitude hammering against his protective arms. Unable to withstand the assault, Alistair landed a striking blow upon Cullen's cheek and under his jaw.
"You could have saved her!" Alistair shouted through his punches, madness taking him beyond reasonableness. Unable to withstand more of the whirlwind attack, Cullen threw both his arms up to block, grabbed onto the king's head and moved to knee him in the stomach. But Alistair was wilier than expected, and he drove a fist into Cullen's knee. Agony shredded up Cullen's thigh and down his calf as he staggered back. Releasing the king, he hopped back, struggling to stay standing.
"Damn it. Damn you!" Alistair shouted, his finger jabbed in Cullen's face. It was turning blue, most likely dislocated but the man didn't notice the pain, he was running on anger and nothing more - for once they were in perfect agreement. "You had the one person in all of thedas that could rip open the veil and pull her out, but you never even asked!"
Chewing through his tongue to fight off the pain, Cullen placed his foot onto the grass and tried to anchor it. "I wasn't the one who drove her to try and kill herself. I didn't break her heart, break her, until she didn't think she could come back! She gave up because of you!"
Like a cat without depth perception, Alistair leapt at Cullen, his royal head battering into the man's stomach. Together they smashed into the grass, the rocky terrain pulverizing into Cullen's kidneys and
spine. He didn't bother to struggle for breath, only grabbed onto Alistair's shirt and tried to hurl him off. It was no longer a fight, just two men throwing punches wildly at the other while screaming into the void. Cullen saw flashes of the man rolling in the ground with him, his vision punctuated with a blinding blackness ringed in red. Every demon that scarred his body, every blood mage that scarred his mind raced to fill the emptiness, mocking him for his failure, for never being good enough for the woman he loved.
Deep inside his heart he felt a snap reverberating up his coiled muscles and into his mind -- the band keeping his sanity held in check obliterated. Shouldering into the king, he drove his knee, elbow, every joint available to him into every surface. Some hit leaving Alistair sputtering for the little air left in either of their lungs. His prey inched along the ground, vulnerable. Cullen knotted up his fists together and raised them above the man's head, prepared to bring them down and end this once and for all. Whipping onto his back, Alistair drew a dagger off his hip and held it pointed up at Cullen's exposed chest. Stalemate.
Watching the oranges of the sunset glitter across the blade, Cullen's chest rose and fell with each labored breath. Something wet dribbled off his cheek and down his jaw. He should wipe it off, but his hands hung suspended above the king's head to strike the killing blow. They didn't fall or end this - unable to risk his life to finish it or break them apart. Blood puddled around Alistair's nose, percolating in airy bubbles with every snort as he struggled to breathe through it. Black swelling stampeded across his cheek from the first blow, the tissue blanketing his left eye. Even through that, he held the dagger steady, a deadly glint in his right eye -- the man was prepared to do whatever was necessary to stay alive. He was a warrior king.
Then his tenacious eyes slipped over to something behind Cullen. "Ah shit, she's got the phylactery!" he sputtered through the blood, snorting it out across his mouth and sandy beard. It could be a trap, Cullen knew, but he turned quickly and spotted Honor with the black bottle in her teeth.
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